68 Biography of a YogiThis mystical brand of Mesmerism had already begun to develop among
the German Romantics of the early nineteenth century. German physician
Johann Heinrich Jung- Stilling (1740– 1817) fused notions of animal magne-
tism, Swedenborgian cosmolog y, and contemporary scientific theory to postu-
late a psychic body whose substance was composed of the luminiferous ether.^27
In America, the efforts of phrenomagnetists— individuals who yoked mesmeric
somnambulism with the cranial analysis and manipulation of phrenolog y— such
as John Bovee Dods (1795– 1872), Joseph Rhodes Buchanan (1814– 1899), and
La Roy Sunderland (1802– 1885), created a theoretical framework of mesmeric
practice that affectively accommodated spiritual intervention.^28 By the time that
the now- famous Fox sisters heard the mysterious rappings at their home in west-
ern New York in 1848, thus inaugurating the rise of the Spiritualist movement
proper,^29 the metaphysical framework to explain these phenomena was conve-
niently at the ready.
One primary distinction between the mechanics of Mesmerism and
Spiritualism lies in the role of the medium, who replaced the mesmerized patient.
While mediums were by definition considered to be passive vessels through which
spirits could speak— and indeed women were considered to be far more disposed to
mediumistic talent specifically due to their docility— they did not strictly require
an operator. That is, their trance states could and often were entirely self- induced.
Indeed, scientists who exhibited an interest in mediumistic phenomena were far
more likely to attribute their mechanics to the power of living medium than to the
spirits of the deceased.^30 Whether it was the supranormal biolog y of ectoplasm,
which yielded theories of “a vibratory organism that paralleled the ethereal undu-
lations of the universe”^31 or the Spiritualistic uses of electrical discharge^32 such
explanations tended to closely follow theories of ether. This was not necessarily a
new development in the mesmeric community, as Braid had made a similar point
in differentiating his psychological concept of hypnosis from the older and more
physiological theories of animal magnetism. However, the Spiritualist medium
possessed a very particular kind of agency that the mesmeric patient did not.^33
The Theosophists, whose founders quite significantly emerged out of
Spiritualist circles, would later take issue with the medium’s subjection to the spir-
its whom she contacted. However, the independent clairvoyance of the medium
was already a significant departure from the strict division of labor between the
mesmeric adept and his dependently clairvoyant patient. One should nevertheless
not overstate the medium’s control over her own trance state. While there appears
to have been a small minority of mediums who exhibited no marked changes in
state of consciousness or personality and could in fact recall everything that had
transpired while they were in trance, for the vast majority mediumship entailed a
total break from their conventional subjectivity. At best, the medium was unique